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Farewell to Manzanar begins on the first Sunday in December of 1941, the day Japan launched a surprise attack on the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. It is a day that changes Jeanne's life and the lives of everyone in her family.
According to the authors, Farewell to Manzanar is a "web of stories tracing a few paths, out of the multitude of paths that led up to and away from the experience of the internment." That web of stories links Jeanne's search for her own unique identity to the wrongs done to Japanese Americans during the war.
The accompanying study guide encourages students to think about the following central questions:
- How do our confrontations with justice and injustice help shape our identity?
- How do those confrontations influence the things we say and do?